New York Jets Using Tinder to Meet Women. Isn't That What 20-Something Guys Do?

I may be one of the last people to date/get engaged/get married before social media took the world by storm. My wife and I barely texted for the 2+ years we dated before getting engaged. We both had flip phones (until our jobs thrust smart phones into our hands). By the time we got married, I think we were both on Facebook but I can’t even say for sure. She has less than zero interest to join twitter (here’s a stunner: 95% of the people/families/neighbors we interact with are not on twitter; yes, it remains mostly a media echo chamber). We met about a decade ago, but it feels like an entirely different generation when you factor in what dating has become in 2014.

Which brings us to Tinder, the “dating” app that really is more of a “hook up” app (or so I hear). It was all the rage in the Olympic Village in Sochi; it’s a staple on college campuses. (Shudder.)

Athletes are using it, too. Not just college athletes, pro football players. Millionaires. The Wall Street Journal scanned Tinder and found several New York Jets with active accounts, looking for love (?) in Cortland, New York, where training camp is held. (I was in Cortland two years ago when Tim Tebow was there; it was a dump. I can only assume the Jets were test driving Tinder for Manhattan this Fall, when the city is jumping.) From the Journal:

"On Giacomini’s profile, there are no pictures of him in an NFL jersey. The four photos show the 28-year-old, 318-pound lineman smiling and wearing a short-sleeve shirt or tank top. He looks like a construction worker—which is what he initially tells women he is. The facade cracks after he meets his dates in person. “A few weeks later, it’s like, ‘What do you have to do on Sunday?'” he said. His reply: “‘I have to do work.'”"

That right there sums up dating in your 20s: Give ’em the gun show, lie a little bit, clear it up later, hope the other person is “normal.” This quote from Ikemefuna Enemkpali, a rookie from Louisiana Tech, cracked me up:

"He said a former college teammate from Louisiana Tech encouraged him to show more muscle. “Because I got big ol’ arms and stuff, he’d always tell me, people want to see you in a tight-fitting shirt. I’m like, no! I don’t need to draw no extra attention to myself,” said Enemkpali, who is 6 feet 1 and 272 pounds. “I can stand by myself as a good person.”"

A fun story. Wait until the Spring Training Tinder stories in February!

I look for the follow-up stories from NFL training camp sites around the country on teams such as the Browns (you know Johnny Manziel has a profile), Minnesota Vikings (because there’s got to be another Love Boat story looming), and Tampa Bay Bucs (camp is in Tampa, the strip club capital of the East Coast).